More ways to cook

Direct cooking is cooking over a flame. It's the most popular form of grilling, and works great for burgers and dogs, and for thinner cuts of meat like steaks, chops and ham. Direct cooking usually happens with the grill cover open, but works faster with the lid down. Direct cooking is fast cooking - for production grilling needs, we have models that can let you make as many as 500 burgers an hour.

Indirect cooking is actually a form of baking. It works with the grill’s cover closed, creating a cooking chamber that works like an oven. There’s no fire under the food – any burners directly under the food are off. You heat the chamber by lighting the adjacent burners (our 6-inch burner spacing helps). Even cheap grills can do indirect cooking, after a fashion, if you place an inverted pan between the flames or coal and your food. Plank cooking is a good example of this.

But - as you might expect - Iron Works has a secret to the best indirect cooking of any grill ever. It's our unique Roto Convection design, an elegant piece of engineering.

Roto Convection creates a circulating air and heat flow that surrounds food with even, eminently controllable heat. It brings more even cooking than many indoor ovens, and much more even cooking than any rotisserie (not to mention eliminating the messes they can make).

With indirect Roto Convection cooking, you can roast whole pigs, big cuts of meat, whole turkeys, whole hams, you name it. You can also make pies, cakes, breads, rolls and pastries, right on the grill.

We don't want you to be confused by the way these words are used - though it's not important here because Iron Works, naturally, excels at all three.

Grilling refers to fast cooking over high heat. Think of the term "flame broiling" that you hear in some fast food commercials. Most grilling times are measured in minutes.

Barbecuing refers to very slow cooking over low heat. Most barbecue times are measured in hours (sometimes, tens of hours). While no authority seems certain as to the origin of the term, we like the explanation that suggests the French origin "barbe a queue" - whiskers to tail - because whole animals were cooked this way.

Smoking refers to any of several methods of introducing smoke to food while in an enclosed chamber - including cold, hot, wet and dry variations. Smoke also makes a great seasoning when just cooking out.

Our optional smoker boxes fit right into the fire grate. You'll want to experiment with a variety of woods - oak, mesquite, apple, pecan, maple, alder and more. Nut shells are an interesting option. There are even commercial sources for wood from brandy, wine and whiskey casks and barrels. You can soak smoker wood in water, beer, fruit juice or wine to introduce those special accents to their flavor.

And only Iron Works offers the option of Bain Marie cooking. You can use our Bain Marie pans for traditional hot water bath cooking, gently preparing custards, for example, or shirring or coddling eggs, right on the grill. Or turn up the heat and use them for steaming or boiling - veggies to lobsters. Thaw frozen foods up there, or use it as a moist or dry get-warm or keep-warm area. It's all about adding flexibility by adding abilities.